Peasant Filipp Ilyich Bodrov (lives in Moscow, Sokolniki, Lesnaya school) — a former Petersburg worker, in the Party for more than 20 years — who owns a farm in Venevsky district of Tula province (about 20 family members living together undivided, a "middle peasant") — assures me that it is possible to transport grain by cart to Moscow at distances up to 200 versts from it (his village is 180 versts from Moscow). There is grain, he says, and there are surpluses.

The winter time has been missed, he says, but even after sowing (which ends around St. Nicholas Day) there will be approximately one month of free time remaining (until the carting out of manure a week before Petrov Day). This must be used.

It is necessary urgently, immediately to gather information and reports and, if there is even the slightest chance, to carry out this measure, because there will be no transport from the east.

7. IV. 1919.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars V. Ulyanov (Lenin)

First published in 1942

in Leninskii sbornik XXXIV

Printed from the manuscript